Getting started

[JRoss]

I am just getting started with Affinity and somewhat overwhelmed. In the past I have used Microsoft Publisher but that was some years ago.  I have prepared a text document of several pages that I want to include photos with.  It is a family history.  I am looking for a straight forward tutorial and some guidance of transferring the text from Word to Affinity.

[dominik]

5 hours ago, JRoss said:

I am just getting started with Affinity and somewhat overwhelmed. In the past I have used Microsoft Publisher but that was some years ago.  I have prepared a text document of several pages that I want to include photos with.  It is a family history.  I am looking for a straight forward tutorial and some guidance of transferring the text from Word to Affinity.

Hello @JRoss and welcome to the forum,

a good starting point are the video tutorials provided by Serif themselfs. There are currently 54 videos available each with its topic in the title. It should be easy to find the steps you are looking for. You find these tutorials here: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/tutorials/publisher/desktop/

To 'Transfer' text from Word to Affinity Publisher you might to look into the command 'File > Place'. The tutorial 'Placing content' on the above page demonstrates this even though the MS Word part is rather short.

Cheers,
d.

[Catshill]

I would recommend a different model from the traditional one size/book fits all.

A combination of the official Affinity tutorials and YouTube videos from established authors works for me. Any issues or problems, post here.

You will probably find parts of the suite unintuitive and get frustrated that it doesn’t do things in a “conventional” way and see that lots of other users having the same issues. Many find it misses some expected functionality described as basic by many frustrated users.

Most of us see that things are getting better as new versions come out.

 

[JRoss]

I have looked at Publisher tutorials and You Tube as well.  Very helpful.  Before doing the major project have used the tutorials for practice runs.

  I think I am on my way! Lots of excellent features.

My spell check does not seem to work and need to figure that out.

[JRoss]

Moving along as a newbie.  Have watched several videos and some more than once!  Having a problem with linking pages.  Thought I had it and then does not seem to work. (I am not using columns for my project).  Also not clear on the "snap" icon

[GarryP]

Unless I’m misunderstanding the issue, you don’t link Pages, you should link Frame Text Layers.
I have no idea what you mean by “not clear on the "snap" icon”; more details may be needed before we can help further.

[JRoss]

Terminology on my part.  I mean linking text box from one page/layer to the next so that text can automatically flow over.

Re the Snap tool.  It is like a magnet or horseshoe at the top of the menu bar.  There is a drop down menu but not sure what this tool does.

 

[Old Bruce]

11 minutes ago, JRoss said:

Re the Snap tool.  It is like a magnet or horseshoe at the top of the menu bar.  There is a drop down menu but not sure what this tool does.

 

It is quite useful for drawing and aligning already created items. I use it to be sure the Text Frames are on the Margins or on a Guide. I may have things that need to be aligned vertically. Make a blank document and play around with the various setting and different tools to see what snaps to what where.

Caveat: the Show Snapping Candidates will put a magenta border around things and can be disconcerting.